***Official 2015 STL Cardinals Thread II***

[BigRedChief]

2011 World Series Championship
2012 NLCS. One win from another WS appearance.
2013 World Series. Two wins from another World Series Championship
2014 NLCS. Three wins from another WS appearance
2015 Clinched Central Division title and Home Field advantage in the playoffs. First team in MLB to win 100 games since 2011.

• Made the postseason 11 times in the last 15 seasons.
• Only 1 losing season since 2000.
• Reached the World Series 4 times since 2004 and won as many championships (two) the past eight seasons as it did from 1965 to 2005.
• Made the NLCS 9 times including the last 4 years 2011-2014
• Three million attendance? Take it to the bank.
• 65 post season wins since 2004. 22+ wins more than any other team.

[Rams Fan]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

To replace who?

Walden's going to be back shortly and Cishek is here now.

With a 7 man pen (god help me if you ask for 8) you have:

Rosenthal
Walden
Maness
Cishek
Villanueva (just stop - he's not going anywhere. Matheny will not have a BP without a long man)
Siegrist
Choate (again, just stop. We already know that Choate will be on this roster until the rapture comes; if he were open to replacement, Lyons would have already taken his job)


Where are you going to put another reliever? And is he really going to be better than Tuivaila or Socolovich have been? If you need to have more innings absorbed, we have more arms to do it.

There's just no need for another bullpen arm at this point. As for starters, you have Cooney and Marco coming back.

This franchise has plenty of arms. Cardinals fans are to pitchers what Chiefs fans are to offensive lineman at this point. No, the answer isn't always "My god! we need more arms!!!" We have scarce resources and much more pressing needs than an 8th potential RH reliever.

The 3 relievers in the top 4 in appearances thing isn't a personnel issue, it's a Matheny issue. I've been saying this for 2 years - Matheny will ride his top 3 guys into the ground every single season. Give him a 10 man !@#$ing relief staff and it won't matter because he'll still find three he likes and he'll flog them until they have to be shot on the track.

I'm only going to bitch about Choate. He can't stay in for more than 1 batter unless he faces 2 lefties in a row or a righty who has bad splits vs left handed pitching. Villanueva in long relief and everyone else is fine. Cishek being a late inning option with Seigrist, and soon to be Walden, might help alleviate the problem. But the LOOGY who usually stays in vs 1 batter does nothing except for get lefties out.

Edited to add: After May and the SP swoon that followed after Waino getting hurt, I was calling for Hamels. But I've backed off. They don't need a SP. Cooney has been fine. Jaime's been ****ing great. And Gonzalez and Lyons are there if a nuke is dropped on 2/5 of the rotation. So, I don't think a starter is a need anymore.

[George Liquor]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

To replace who?

Walden's going to be back shortly and Cishek is here now.

With a 7 man pen (god help me if you ask for 8) you have:

Rosenthal
Walden
Maness
Cishek
Villanueva (just stop - he's not going anywhere. Matheny will not have a BP without a long man)
Siegrist
Choate (again, just stop. We already know that Choate will be on this roster until the rapture comes; if he were open to replacement, Lyons would have already taken his job)


Where are you going to put another reliever? And is he really going to be better than Tuivaila or Socolovich have been? If you need to have more innings absorbed, we have more arms to do it.

There's just no need for another bullpen arm at this point. As for starters, you have Cooney and Marco coming back.

This franchise has plenty of arms. Cardinals fans are to pitchers what Chiefs fans are to offensive lineman at this point. No, the answer isn't always "My god! we need more arms!!!" We have scarce resources and much more pressing needs than an 8th potential RH reliever.

The 3 relievers in the top 4 in appearances thing isn't a personnel issue, it's a Matheny issue. I've been saying this for 2 years - Matheny will ride his top 3 guys into the ground every single season. Give him a 10 man !@#$ing relief staff and it won't matter because he'll still find three he likes and he'll flog them until they have to be shot on the track.

In a perfect world, we would replace Choate.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by Rams Fan

I'm only going to bitch about Choate. He can't stay in for more than 1 batter unless he faces 2 lefties in a row or a righty who has bad splits vs left handed pitching. Villanueva in long relief and everyone else is fine. Cishek being a late inning option with Seigrist, and soon to be Walden, might help alleviate the problem. But the LOOGY who usually stays in vs 1 batter does nothing except for get lefties out.

Edited to add: After May and the SP swoon that followed after Waino getting hurt, I was calling for Hamels. But I've backed off. They don't need a SP. Cooney has been fine. Jaime's been ****ing great. And Gonzalez and Lyons are there if a nuke is dropped on 2/5 of the rotation. So, I don't think a starter is a need anymore.

Bitch about Choate all you want but the fact is that any lefty reliever we get isn't likely to be better as a lefty reliever than Lyons would be (who's stuff profiles perfectly for the job) and the team is refusing to DFA Choate to turn that job over to him.

They aren't going to recognize Choate as the washed up sunk cost that he is. It's part of the reason why I'm a little indifferent as to what they do at the deadline because there is no doubt in my mind that Choate will cost us a game in October and it may well be good enough to end our season. His 'performance' last October pretty much did us in and Chud Matheny hasn't learned from a mistake yet so why expect him to do so now?

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BDj23

In a perfect world, we would replace Choate.

I HATE ALL OF YOU!!!!!!

[George Liquor]

STL:

1b/of: Brandon Moss
rhp: Bryan Shaw

To CLE:

sp: Tim Cooney
rhp: Sam Tuivalala
A-level prospect

Done deal by Thursday night.

This was taken from STLtoday.com, I don't visit the site much.. But I'd hate to lose Cooney for a pretty good relief pitcher and Mark Reynolds 2.0

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by O.city

Tui and socolovich have been pretty ****ing good

Tui is going to be a goddamn monster soon.

The dude added movement to his fastball and I'm pretty sure he's got a cutter in there now as well.

With even nominal improvement in his control (and he's already improved it immensely over the last year), he's a legitimate 8th inning caliber arm on a team that already has at least 2 of them.

I wouldn't be even a little shocked to see Tuiaviala closing in 2019. In fact, at this point I'd be surprised if he isn't.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by BDj23

STL:

1b/of: Brandon Moss
rhp: Bryan Shaw

To CLE:

sp: Tim Cooney
rhp: Sam Tuivalala
A-level prospect

Done deal by Thursday night.

This was taken from STLtoday.com, I don't visit the site much.. But I'd hate to lose Cooney for a pretty good relief pitcher and Mark Reynolds 2.0

Well. That is certainly shitty.

I don't buy it. The Tribe got Moss for nothing 4 months ago and he's actually underperformed something awful; why would his value have skyrocketed? The deadline creates pressures, sure, but never that bad and definitely not for a guy that's almost surely going to be non-tendered because of how poorly he's played this year.

If we end up giving up 12 years of no doubt major league pitching (because both of those guys are definitely major leaguers) for an average RH Reliever (who isn't needed at all) and a guy that was traded for peanuts and has largely sucked this year, I'll be stunned.

[Chiefspants]

Originally Posted by BDj23

STL:

1b/of: Brandon Moss
rhp: Bryan Shaw

To CLE:

sp: Tim Cooney
rhp: Sam Tuivalala
A-level prospect

Done deal by Thursday night.

This was taken from STLtoday.com, I don't visit the site much.. But I'd hate to lose Cooney for a pretty good relief pitcher and Mark Reynolds 2.0

I don't understand this trade at all. You'd be trading for a DH quality defense (at 1B) who has struggled since returning for major hip surgery in 2014. I'm not up to speed on who you'd be giving up, but are the Cardinals hurting bad enough to need Moss anyways?

[George Liquor]

Originally Posted by Chiefspants

I don't understand this trade at all. You'd be trading for a DH who has struggled since returning for major hip surgery in 2014 and a decent reliever. I'm not up to speed on who you'd be giving up, but are the Cardinals hurting bad enough to need Moss anyways?

First base is a shit hole, but we already have a Moss type player in Mark Reynolds. With Garcia's injury history, Cooney's next start could be right around the corner. He has proven himself to be major league talent. I think this trade is stupid, and hopefully OP on STLtoday is just throwing shit at the wall.

['Hamas' Jenkins]

Originally Posted by DJ's left nut

Tui is going to be a goddamn monster soon.

The dude added movement to his fastball and I'm pretty sure he's got a cutter in there now as well.

With even nominal improvement in his control (and he's already improved it immensely over the last year), he's a legitimate 8th inning caliber arm on a team that already has at least 2 of them.

I wouldn't be even a little shocked to see Tuiaviala closing in 2019. In fact, at this point I'd be surprised if he isn't.

I'm pretty sure that he throws the cutter almost exclusively. And if he can throw it for strikes at 96, there's no reason why he shouldn't. I don't think PitchF/X is classifying his fastball correctly.

[DJ's left nut]

Originally Posted by 'Hamas' Jenkins

I'm pretty sure that he throws the cutter almost exclusively. And if he can throw it for strikes at 96, there's no reason why he shouldn't. I don't think PitchF/X is classifying his fastball correctly.

If the dude can throw a 96 mph cutter, he can throw a 100 mph 4-seamer and we haven't seen that from him (or at least I haven't).

It looked to me like a simple case of a guy with a 3/4 release point getting good tail on his fastball.

You may be right though:

http://www.fangraphs.com/pitchfxg.as...015-07-19&dh=0

That's his pitch chart for the marathon game vs. the Mets. I can't tell which pitch is which, but he said in a post-game interview that he threw Pawlecki a cutter to get out of the inning. PitchFX only calls one of his fastballs a 2-seamer and honestly that just looks like one that he dropped down on a bit and scooped it (explaining why it exploded out of the zone to the glove side).

There is another pitch in there that PitchFX calls a fastball that came in at 90 and showed much more drop, though that may also have just been a bad slider.

It seems odd that he'd throw nothing but cutters when it appears to be a pitch he just started throwing in May, but if he got comfortable with it quickly, there's no reason not to lean on it.

I'll have to watch him a bit more closely next time I see him to get a better feel for it. In either event, the guy has come a long way from the kid that was just humping hard fastballs with little movement at the middle of the strike zone last year. He's gonna be a good one.

[BigRedChief]

Originally Posted by BDj23

STL:

1b/of: Brandon Moss
rhp: Bryan Shaw

To CLE:

sp: Tim Cooney
rhp: Sam Tuivalala
A-level prospect

Done deal by Thursday night.

This was taken from STLtoday.com, I don't visit the site much.. But I'd hate to lose Cooney for a pretty good relief pitcher and Mark Reynolds 2.0

That looks like a real shitty deal. Why would we do some kind of desperation deal like that?

[George Liquor]

Jaime gets squeezed on strike 3 to Phillips then Votto jacks a 3 run homer.

That's lame.

[Marcellus]

Originally Posted by BigRedChief

That looks like a real shitty deal. Why would we do some kind of desperation deal like that?

Someone from the PD Message Board which is where that had to come from.

[ChiefsCountry]

Originally Posted by BDj23

STL:

1b/of: Brandon Moss
rhp: Bryan Shaw

To CLE:

sp: Tim Cooney
rhp: Sam Tuivalala
A-level prospect

Done deal by Thursday night.

This was taken from STLtoday.com, I don't visit the site much.. But I'd hate to lose Cooney for a pretty good relief pitcher and Mark Reynolds 2.0

That's a shitty deal. Real shitty.